--- title: 'PD Intern at Etched' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/pd-intern-etched-san-jose-vk0vrxxst43j' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-07' --- # PD Intern at Etched - **Company:** [Etched](https://feeny.ai/companies/etched) - **Location:** San Jose, CA - **Employment:** internship - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-05-19 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-07 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/etched/bd8c5768-7efa-4a18-9e56-485ccaf4ec77/application **Skills:** High-speed digital logic, ASIC design concepts, SoC design concepts, SystemVerilog, UVM, Python, Verification work, Test bench writing, Physical design flows, ASIC tooling, Transformer models, Machine learning, Numerical representations, RTL, Clocking and reset schemes, Formal verification, Scripting languages > As a Physical Design intern, you will realize front-end designs in silicon by developing physical design flows, synthesizing blocks, and automating design checks. You will advise RTL design decisions and assist in improving iteration speed to final signoff for Etched's AI inference systems. ## Job description ## About Etched Etched is building hardware for frontier intelligence. We co-design chips, racks, software, and manufacturing to deliver best-in-class throughput and latency across both prefill and decode workloads. Our first products are heavily focused on inference. Backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors and staffed by leading engineers, Etched is redefining the infrastructure layer for the fastest growing industry in history. Job Summary As a Physical Design intern for Etched, you will be responsible for realizing our front-end designs in silicon, helping Etched to improve iteration speed to final signoff. You will assist in developing and running Physical Design flows to synthesize blocks, automate final design checks, and advise RTL design decisions. We are looking for Fall '26, Spring '27, and Summer '27 interns. You may be a good fit if you have - Progress towards a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related field. - Familiarity with high-speed digital logic - Exposure to ASIC or SoC design concepts - Familiarity with SystemVerilog, UVM, or Python - Familiarity with verification work and writing test benches - Familiarity with physical design flows and tooling - Are able to learn quickly about transformers and other aspects of modern artificial intelligence Strong candidates may also have experience with - Familiarity with modern ML and LLM model architectures - Familiarity with numerical representations and functions (RTL) - Familiarity with clocking and reset schemes (RTL/PD) - UVM or formal verification experience (DV) - Ability to program with Python or another scripting language We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. Program details - 12-week paid internship - Generous housing support for those relocating - Daily lunch and dinner in our office - Based at our office in San Jose, CA - Direct mentorship from industry leaders and world-class engineers - Opportunity to work on one of the most important problems of our time For any questions, contact internships@etched.com ## How we’re different Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html. We are the first inference-focused frontier AI system. Our addressable market is the entirety of inference, unlike many of our competitors. We are a fully in-person team in San Jose (Santana Row), and greatly value engineering skills. We do not have boundaries between engineering and research, and we expect all of our technical staff to contribute to both and work across disciplines as needed. ## About Etched ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Etched designs and manufactures specialized ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) that are hardwired to run transformer-based AI models, offering an order-of-magnitude improvement in inference cost and energy efficiency over general-purpose GPUs. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series B / later stage; total raised $800M as of June 2026) - **Headquarters**: San Jose, California, USA (also has offices in Cupertino, CA; Sacramento, CA; and small presence in Taiwan, Canada, UK, Bulgaria) - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Gavin Uberti (CEO), Robert Wachen (President & COO), Chris Zhu (Co-Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: AI hardware / semiconductor design / computer hardware manufacturing - **Target customers**: Frontier AI labs, hyperscalers, and enterprises running large-scale transformer inference workloads (B2B, enterprise) - **Mission / purpose**: Build hardware for superintelligence – specifically, the world’s most powerful servers for transformer inference. ## Products & Services - **Sohu Chip (ASIC)**: A transformer-specific ASIC manufactured by TSMC. It burns the transformer architecture directly into silicon, eliminating the overhead of general-purpose GPUs for inference. - **Frontier Inference Clusters**: Full-stack systems that bundle the Sohu chip with custom-designed racks, networking, and software. Customers place orders for complete systems, not just chips. Etched claims they deliver more tokens per dollar and per watt for dense models, sparse MoEs, diffusion models, and more. - **Software Stack**: Includes compiler and runtime optimizations built by a team with deep experience (former Apache TVM developer, ex-Google TPU software lead). ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: $5 billion post-money valuation (as of December 2025 / disclosed June 2026) - **Key Metric**: $1 billion in contract orders (booked) for its systems; total funding of $800M (including an unannounced $500M round closed Dec 2025 led by Stripes) - **Notable Investors**: Stripes (lead), VentureTech Alliance, Jane Street, Hudson River Trading, Two Sigma, Ribbit Capital. Angel investors include Andrej Karpathy, Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Arthur Mensch, Scott Wu, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Thiel. Earlier backers: Positive Sum, Primary Venture Partners. - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount: 258 employees (as of mid-2026), up 141% year-over-year - 100+ active job postings across engineering, operations, and business functions - $500M raise in late 2025; first chip manufactured by TSMC in 2025 and now being tested with customers - Talent sources include Google (21), Apple (17), NVIDIA (16), Tesla (11), Intel (10), AMD (5) ## Competitive Advantages - **Transformer-specific architecture**: Unlike GPUs (which are general-purpose), Etched’s chip is hardwired only for transformer operations, enabling drastically lower cost and latency for today’s dominant AI model architecture. - **Full-stack system play**: By selling entire inference clusters (chip + rack + software), Etched captures more value and delivers a turnkey solution competitive with NVIDIA’s DGX/HGX systems. - **Deeply experienced leadership**: - CEO Gavin Uberti (Harvard math researcher, AI compiler expert, Apache TVM contributor) - President Robert Wachen (co-founded Prod AI incubator; Thiel Fellow) - VP of Platform (ex-NVIDIA 22 years, built HGX/DGX systems) - VP of Software (ex-Google DeepMind, lead TPU v1–v5 software) - Chief Architect Saptadeep Pal (former Auradine co-founder, chiplet expert) - VP of Hardware Engineering Ajat Hukkoo (ex-Cypress CTO, shipped >$1B revenue products) ## Strategic Focus - **Scale manufacturing and customer deliveries**: With the first chip successfully fabricated, the company is now testing production systems and aims to fulfill $1B in pre-orders. - **Expand engineering talent**: Aggressively hiring across silicon design, validation, infrastructure, optics, and software to support volume ramp. - **Maintain technological lead**: Continue refining the ASIC for future transformer variants and MoE mixtures while building out a partner ecosystem. ## Why Work Here - **Mission-driven, high-impact engineering**: “Building the hardware for superintelligence” – the company is solving one of the hardest problems in compute (inference efficiency) with a focused team. - **Top-tier team and learning environment**: Colleagues from Google, NVIDIA, Apple, Tesla, Broadcom, and Intel; exposure to full-stack chip-to-system design. - **In-office culture**: All roles are in-office (Cupertino and San Jose, CA). The company emphasizes on-site collaboration for hardware development. Notable perks are not heavily advertised, but compensation is competitive for the AI hardware space (equity-heavy). - **Growth trajectory**: 141% headcount growth YoY, hundreds of open roles, and a $5B valuation signal strong backing and career acceleration potential. - **Intellectual challenge**: Work on chip simulation, RTL design, system validation, or software infrastructure for cutting-edge AI inference. ## Sources 1. [etched.com/careers](https://www.etched.com/careers) 2. [builtin.com/company/etched](https://builtin.com/company/etched) 3. [linkedin.com/company/etched-ai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/etched-ai) 4. [cbinsights.com/company/etched](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/etched) 5. [techcrunch.com/2026/06/30/nvidia-competitor-etched-hits-5b-valuation-1b-in-sales-for-ai-chip/](https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/30/nvidia-competitor-etched-hits-5b-valuation-1b-in-sales-for-ai-chip/) ## Other roles at Etched - [EE Hardware System Engineer (TW)](https://feeny.ai/job/ee-hardware-system-engineer-tw-etched-taipei-fgncym9kzy6w) — Taipei, Taiwan - [Silicon Validation Engineer, Software](https://feeny.ai/job/silicon-validation-engineer-software-etched-san-jose-qhp3k9xqy5vr) — San Jose, CA - [RMA & Repair Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/rma-repair-lead-etched-san-jose-q0tmchh0yyrj) — San Jose, CA - [Advanced Packaging SI/PI Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/advanced-packaging-si-pi-engineer-etched-san-jose-47he7k0hp901) — San Jose, CA - [Substrate IC Package Layout Design Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/substrate-ic-package-layout-design-engineer-etched-san-jose-g36wmxc8ww9r) — San Jose, CA - [ECAD Librarian](https://feeny.ai/job/ecad-librarian-etched-san-jose-0h5kvj2cxzk4) — San Jose, CA - [Inventory Warehouse Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/inventory-warehouse-coordinator-etched-san-jose-49b0bs49ce57) — San Jose, CA - [Logistics Analyst (Taiwan)](https://feeny.ai/job/logistics-analyst-taiwan-etched-taipei-5xzc094cqgzn) — Taipei, Taiwan - [Communications](https://feeny.ai/job/communications-etched-san-jose-3f4bdr97hysp) — San Jose, CA - [Production Finance](https://feeny.ai/job/production-finance-etched-san-jose-qfypbv9eh0ws) — San Jose, CA